Birthright
by Tianko
Summary: A retelling. Rayman 2.
1. Prelude

_I've always adored Rayman 2, and I've always wanted to expand on its world. So here we are. An odd and AU expansion of Rayman 1 and 2 that folds the two games into one another, with some stuff from Rayman 3. Nothing at all from Origins or other continuities. Violence, sadness, and a few bad words, but no sex or excessive gore. Also: I am really verbose. Also: I would love if anyone could step up to beta read this. Can't seem to find many Rayman beta readers._

_Rayman and everyone in his games belong to Ubisoft Entertainment._

_Chapter notes: Marshlanders are meant to look like Count Razoff from Rayman 3, just not quite as well-dressed. (By far.) All the other strange things will be explained eventually. Thank you so much for reading._

_**Chapter 1  
Prelude**_

_No one knows from whence you came nor who your parents were. Of all the inhabitants here, you are the only one whom Polokus did not dream. You are the only one to receive powers from the fairies. Some see you as the chosen one of all the gods. Who knows...?_

–_The knowledge of the Lums, Rayman 2_

–

Intruders, southeast corner of the fringe. The usual.

Ly ran through the sparse branches of the thinning canopy, backlit by the barest glow of pre-dawn sky. She leapt in great, outstretched bounds from tree to tree, skipping like a stone across water as she dashed over gnarled branches that seemed too spindly to hold her weight.

The other fairies always scoffed and tittered when they saw her like this, bounding through the treetops on all fours. They said she looked undignified, like a feral animal. Their words didn't bother her anymore. They were happy with their gilded stone halls and their stained glass windows. This was where she belonged.

She stretched out, out, as far as her arms could reach. The tension sang through her body. Her hands closed around a knotted branch and she let the impact ripple through her arms, down her back and out through her long, flowing tail. The momentum pulled her body forward; a second's hesitation and she would fly past the branch, lose her grip, and plummet to the ground below. But her eyes were already fixed on a new landing point in a tree ahead. Down and to the left. She kicked off, sailing through the air in a clean, controlled arc born from years of practice. Exquisite.

Far below her, the forest floor was more yellow than green, and dirty puddles seeped up through sunken patches as if the earth itself were molding and sagging. This was the fringe: the border between the Great Forest and the murky wetlands to the south. It was nice to patrol here, if you could ignore the rotten smell. Forest dwellers called the trees ugly and stunted. Maybe they were, but they were also spacious and wide open, unlike the tangled canopies deeper inside the forest. In these trees she could run casually, thoughtlessly, faster than many fairies could fly.

She spotted a hazy point of yellow light ahead, where the trees became too sparse to be called a forest anymore. A bog Teensie's lantern. Probably Renaud's, since he was the one who called in the disturbance. She could ask him where—

Her eyes widened as they adjusted to the light. There were three of them, marshlanders, all standing uncomfortably close to Renaud. Slimy reptilian skin, too-long faces that drooped and dangled, gangly arms attached to rail-thin torsos. Their clothes might have looked ornate, long ago, before they became caked with the muck and ooze of their homeland that stained the fabric a mottled gray-green.

Renaud stood between them and the forest. A feeble gesture. He looked nonchalant, but she could see he was gripping his lantern tighter than he needed to. The marshlanders were all at least twice his height; they loomed over him, grinning and gesturing with their weapons. The middle one had a ramshackle rifle held together with wood, wire, and prayers, while the other two gripped long reeds with sharpened tips.

"—It's a real shame, but I can't say we had anything to do with it..." Renaud's voice drifted to the treetops where she watched. His tone was even, reasonable. Ever the diplomat.

His diplomacy wasn't working. "Isn't that convenient?" The right-hand marshlander jeered. He stepped forward, forcing Renaud to retreat a few footsteps.

Ly hissed through her teeth. He said there were intruders, not intruders cornering him with guns in his face! Damn him and his whole stubborn race. She would have teleported straight to him if she'd known he was in real danger.

Below, the conversation was not going in a pretty direction. The middle marshlander said something harsh and poked Renaud's wide-brimmed hat with the butt of his rifle. Renaud stumbled backward a few steps. His boot sunk into mud and his lantern swung precariously. Ly narrowed her eyes. Time to intervene. She closed her eyes and focused.

A pinpoint of white light appeared over the Teensie's head. The marshlanders backed away, surprised, while Renaud pulled his boot free and stepped to the side without much hurry. He'd seen this show before; they obviously hadn't. Ly leaned forward and her body winked out of existence. The fleck of light blossomed into petals of white, blinding compared to their dim surroundings. Smaller auras of brightness stirred within the halo, drawing her body into form in front of them. Materializing out of thin air. Very dramatic.

She floated weightless in the air as the glimmering magic faded, until she was lit only by the wavering yellow light of Renaud's lantern. She stared down at the marshlanders. They had scurried backwards in a panicked heap at her sudden appearance, squinting and shielding their eyes against the glow. She would have smiled if she were alone. She'd practiced this spell so many times just to get that kind of reaction. She could have just jumped down from the tree to confront them, but these kinds of theatrics were the key to a nonviolent stand-down. Unbalance them, frighten them, show them just how out of their depth they were. The height advantage from the floating helped, too.

"Is there a problem?" she asked. She resisted the urge to glance down and see if Renaud was all right. Keep eye contact.

The middle marshlander scrambled to compose himself, and his lackeys followed suit. He was shorter than the others, with something that might once have been a feather poking up from his dingy cap. He scowled. "Well, look who it is," he spat. "The fairy girl, out to strong-arm us."

Ly didn't answer. He glared and gripped his rifle tighter. "There _is _a problem." he said. "That little thief and his friends have been stealing our catches!"

"Your catches?"

"Our fish! And other things." he growled. "We work day and night to bring them in, to feed our families, and these crooks think they can just waltz in and carry them away under our noses! Bet they think they can get away with it too, with _you_ to cower behind."

It was a ridiculous accusation. Most Teensies were vegetarian anyway. Even if they weren't, only the marshlanders could eat the creatures that crawled from the fetid waters of the marshes without getting sick. No, this was just a transparent excuse for them to needle the borders of the Great Forest. Again.

She played along, though. "Are you sure you hung them high enough to keep them from the piranhas?"

"Of course we did!" the rifle marshlander raised his voice. "What do you think, we were born yesterday? No, we were just asking this fellow if we could look through his house, make sure he's innocent like he says, but what do you know, seems like he has something to hide."

"Yes... my valuables." Renaud murmured with a roll of his eyes.

"You say something?" the marshlander swaggered forward, but stopped as Ly leveled a pointed stare at him. "If you have something to tell us, speak up!"

Ly took over. "I'll look into any allegations and report back to your town."

"Like hell you will!" the rifle marshlander snarled. There were years' worth of small skirmishes and snubs fueling the rage in his words. She'd been keeping the pond scum out of this forest for a long, long time, and they resented it. The other two marshlanders seemed to take a cue from their leader's bravado. They stepped forward, standing alongside him. "You think you're tough, huh?" The leader asked. He moved to swing his rifle up. "You think you can just brush us off? Scare us away? Well, sweetie, let me introduce you-"

Before the weapon was even at his shoulder, Ly lunged. A flash of blinding energy shot from her hand. The hot orb of light struck the nose of the rifle and tore the weapon from the marshlander's hands, sending it spinning into the air. The soggy wood barrel exploded as if it had been thrown into a bonfire and pelted them with splinters and chunks of smoking wood. The marshlanders cried out and scrambled back; one of them tripped and fell on his rear.

Ly hardly blinked, though the noise hurt her ears; had to keep up appearances. She used a small barrier to harmlessly deflect the debris from her and Renaud. The ruined rifle landed with a splash in a nearby puddle.

"You will go back to your homes." Ly said. Her magic sparked and whirled around her, lifting her higher into the air, whipping the hair and the fur on her tail in an invisible galestorm. She was Ly of the Glade, guardian of the forest, and she would not let them forget it. "You will not harass my people or try to enter this forest again."

The marshlanders gaped at her. Her eyes flashed in more than a metaphorical sense. "_Go._"

They spat and cursed at her, but they left in a hurry all the same. She stared after them until she couldn't hear their wet footfalls any longer.

Next to her, Renaud sagged and let out a long breath. She was struck by how _small_ he was, compared to the marshlanders, compared to her. He barely reached halfway up her thigh even with his big hat. A Teensie indeed.

"Thanks, Ly." he said.

She looked down at him and nodded. He didn't look any worse for wear, just tired. He adjusted his wide mushroom-cap.

"You know it'll be hell after this," he continued. His voice was weary. "They'll say we attacked unprovoked, wrecked their property. They'll be back before the week is up."

It was true. A neverending skirmish with these hooligans. "I've almost convinced the council to set up more wards along the border," she said, trying to inject some hope into the conversation. "I have at least three people willing to help out." It _was _satisfying to scare off the riffraff on her own, but she couldn't be around all the time, and it wasn't worth risking the safety of Renaud or the other Teensies who lived in these areas. Besides, the bogs housed more than just marshlanders in their murky depths.

"That would be nice." Renaud said. "Honestly, I don't know why I stick around these parts. I should move to the bay. Buy a seaside shack, get a suntan."

"Why did you come out here alone?" Ly said with a frown. "You should have let me know you were in harm's way."

"I thought I could talk them down." he replied. "Didn't want to escalate things. You know I could pop out if it got really bad."

_Stubborn,_ she thought. But at least he was okay. Teensies did have some teleportation magic, but it was weak, and it would only get harder to keep the marshlanders on the right side of the border if they knew they could force forest dwellers to flee before them. This whole situation was just begging to tip into disaster, or tragedy. She made a mental note to teleport the next time she got a call out here, no matter what was supposedly happening.

Behind them, there was a gentle humming noise; the sound of rock vibrating against soft ground. "...Speaking of the bay..." Renaud said, turning.

Near the edge of the forest stood a decoratively carved stone. It hummed and flickered slightly as if to draw their attention. A Stone of Thought. To Ly, the humming all seemed the same, but Renaud and other Teensies could tell who was calling from the sound alone. She wished she was as finely attuned as they were.

Renaud and Ly crossed to stand before the stone, and he placed his palm on its surface. The magic in it swelled, glowed, and settled into the form of a second Teensie, dressed in a sturdy vest and boots with a sun-beaten wicker hat. Pierre, from the bay. The only way she could tell it was a magical projection instead of a real teleportation was because the Teensie's boots didn't sink into the mire below them. The Teensie grinned and raised a hand in a jaunty hello. "Ren! How're you faring this fine morning?"

"Cleaning the bog slime off the borders, as usual." Renaud replied.

"Sounds like a... sticky situation." Pierre chuckled at his own awful joke. Ly rolled her eyes and Renaud let out a soft sigh. _Bay Teensies. _

"But speaking of bog people!" Pierre said. "You wouldn't believe what washed up on the beach this morning!" His tone sounded as if he was just sharing the local gossip, but Renaud and Ly perked up at the offhand comment.

Renaud frowned. "Marshlanders, on the beach?" he asked. Ly was just as concerned. Marshlanders didn't sail the ocean, and they never got far enough north to reach the Glade's shores.

"Not exactly," Pierre replied. "We're not quite sure what he was. They must've prayed to some really zany spirits to cook up this fellow."

Not just a 'what', but a '_he'_? Ly focused on the stone, and used her magic to 'push' herself into the flow of the mental conversation. "There's an intruder that far north, and you didn't think to alert the fairies?" she asked the Teensie. She tried to look calm, but it was only after speaking that she noticed her tail flicking back and forth.

Pierre's eyes widened as he noticed her. "Oh! Miss Ly! Aheh. Hello!" He adjusted his hat. "Of course! I was just about to."

"What happened?" she asked.

Pierre looked delighted to have an audience. "Well! You know there was a storm yesterday. We were out on the shore, grabbing anything useful that might have washed up, and we see something just _carpeted_ in blue lums up ahead. We thought the lums meant he was dead, but then all of a sudden he yawned and sat up."

Ly frowned. That could mean two things: something undead, or something from another realm. The delicate blue orbs of light weren't the smartest magical creatures: they were drawn into new life, and they clustered around the dead, but they also followed things that acted alive but weren't, or things that were alive but didn't use lums for their lifeforce. Neither possibility was particularly comforting.

Pierre continued. "Guy had a pretty powerful magic about him. You could feel it in the air. Seemed off, somehow."

Ly wanted to groan. Of _course _the mysterious being was dangerously powerful.

"But that wasn't the strangest thing! The guy... his body... boy, you really had to see it."

"What was strange about it?"

"Don't laugh... he was missing half his body parts! No arms, no neck, no legs. Just a head, feet, hands, some kind of purple blob floating in the middle. But he got up and walked all the same."

_What?_ She'd never heard of anything like that in her entire life.

Pierre thoughtfully chewed on his fingertip. "Like... a puppet. A puppet with strings. But I didn't see any strings. Pretty amazing, really."

"I'm coming to you." Ly said. "Is he still there?"

"Nah. He was already pretty spooked, what with being scratched up and waterlogged and surrounded by lums trying to force their way down his throat. He bolted into the forest after Martin poked him with a stick."

"You _provoked _him." Renaud said in a flat voice. His tone seemed entirely unsurprised.

Pierre raised his hands in a helpless gesture. "It was Martin! Not me!"

She sighed. Powerful, possibly undead being running loose in her forest, and she only knew about it because some jokester wanted to spill the local gossip to his buddy.

_Bay Teensies._


	2. Recoil

_Rayman and everyone in his games belong to Ubisoft Entertainment._

_**Chapter 2**_

_**Recoil**_

It wasn't hard to see which way the being had gone. Frantic footsteps tore through the sand in a straight line towards the trees. The trail was marked here and there by confused blue lums, wondering why the new arrival wouldn't accept them.

She made her way into the forest, keeping an eye out for stray blue lums. She quickly realized she didn't need them. Now that she was closer, she could _feel _the being, somewhere ahead of her. She could sense the usual threads of magic and life pulsing through the world, and then, all of a sudden, there was a bubble of _not,_ something foreign, conspicuously disconnected from the world around it. Alive, but in a different way.

Definitely not from their realm.

It was moving, up in the treetops, erratic and very fast. But she was faster.

She raced at full speed through the canopy, dodging dense clumps of branches, slowly closing the gap. What did it look like? A huge, hulking thing, slimy and diseased like the marshlanders? A grotesque undead beast, with raw flesh hanging from the gaps where its missing limbs should be? Its core a deep, pulsing purple, spilling dark magic onto every surface it touched—

She nearly ran face-first into a branch. She dodged and hissed at herself. Her imagination could play later; right now she had to concentrate on running without earning a mouthful of leaves in the process.

The thing was slowing down, up ahead. She slowed too, quietly moving closer, stepping carefully with her soft shoes to muffle her approach. She sensed it as it stopped in the fork of a tree trunk. She was close, so close. She could hear quiet panting ahead.

She crept down a branch and peeked through a gap in the leaves, and had to stop herself from letting out a gasp.

The 'thing' wasn't a monster at all. Just the opposite. He was smaller than she was, huddled in the crook of the tree. His face was pale and flecked with grit where he'd been lying in the sand. She could see why the Teensies mistook him for a marshlander, but he didn't look like one, not really. He did have a big nose, but his skin tone was closer to a fairy's than it was to the bog people. He lay nearly prone, propped against the tree trunk with eyes half-shut, and his whole body trembled a little as he gulped in breaths of air after his breakneck run. Or maybe he was shivering; he _had_ washed up on the beach, and even the warm forest wouldn't be quite warm enough if you were soaked in frigid ocean water.

More than anything, he just looked like a scared, exhausted kid, the victim of some shipwreck. She had the sudden urge to reach out, assure him everything was okay, but she stopped herself. She could still feel the unsettling foreign bubble around him. He was still something unknown, no matter how pitiful he might look.

A blue lum floated onto his face, still doggedly following even after his full-tilt dash through the canopy. He groaned and reached up with a white-gloved hand to bat it away.

Ly's eyes widened. Pierre had been right. The hands in their scuffed white gloves were completely detached from the torso next to them. They danced through the air with nothing holding them up. His feet, too... they were pressed onto the bark, but they weren't bracing _against_ anything. Even his head was completely separate, with no neck or any indication that one had ever been there, just smooth skin running from his jawline to the back of his head.

All the parts were arranged roughly where they'd be positioned on a normal body... just, there was nothing between them. Yet, despite all the missing pieces, he looked whole in a sense, as if this was exactly the way he was meant to be.

A noise interrupted her thoughts. Something gently swishing, disturbing the leaves directly behind her. She jumped straight up in alarm. The stranger immediately noticed her and froze.

She whirled around, but there was nobody there. It took her a split second to realize—her damn, damn, _damnable_ tail! It had just been her tail, flicking back and forth. Now her cover was blown, and she looked like an idiot on top of it.

She slowly, carefully turned back around to face the stranger. He stared at her like a mouse might stare at a hawk. He'd gathered his hands and feet underneath him, and every part of him was taut as a stretched rubber band. His eyes were glazed over with the animalistic kind of panic that came from sheer exhaustion. She met his gaze, and he flinched as if she'd struck him and shot off through the treetops once more in a blur of not-limbs.

"No! Wait!" she cried. He either didn't hear or didn't care to listen. How could he move so fast when he looked so tired?

She pushed off and gave chase. Her muscles protested; she hadn't seriously pursued someone through the canopy in a long time. She ignored the ache.

She spotted a small clearing down below and suddenly realized where they were. The two of them were very close to Globox's home; in fact, they'd run right into it if they kept going straight. She still didn't know who this person was or why he was here, and the last thing she wanted was to put Globox's family in any kind of danger.

She came up behind the stranger and glimpsed him in motion for the first time. He was nimble and quick, grabbing branches and pushing off tree trunks as if he were light as a feather. He didn't need to worry about catching any elbows or knees on outlying branches, which let him squeeze through tiny gaps and grasp handholds and footholds she could never use. The movement was both bizarre and irritatingly efficient. She'd practiced canopy running for _years, _and he made it look like effortless child's play. At least she was still faster.

"Hey!" she called. He glanced back at her out of the corner of his eye, and his mouth opened in surprise. Then he swung one hand out behind him. It vanished into the brush.

She tried to focus on him while still keeping pace, dashing from limb to limb at full speed. "I'm not here to-" Before she could finish, something white and heavy struck her hard in the shoulder. She stumbled and did a complete flip in the air before slamming into a thick branch. She gasped and felt herself slipping; her hand found a knot in the wood and she clung to it for dear life. Spots swam in her vision and her back ached where it had smacked the tree limb. The rest of her stung where she'd been lashed by vines and twigs during her crash landing.

She slowly pulled herself onto the branch. _He'd hit her!_ With one of his hands! Somehow. How far could that strange body stretch to attack? She winced and snarled under her breath.

She quickly cast out her magical senses, feeling for the strange bubble that marked his movements. He was getting away. He would be nearly on top of the Globox's home now. She had to act fast. She charged a ball of white light in her palm. Just to slow him down, hopefully divert him to another path. And if it happened to hit him, well, sweet revenge.

She sent the shot whistling through the trees. It lanced forward, incinerating small twigs and leaves in its wake. The stranger touched down on a branch just as the orb struck it, and it shattered the wood like a bullet through glass, throwing him forward with all his momentum plus the force of an explosion.

That should slow him down.

Ly gingerly descended to the forest floor and half-ran, half-limped through the undergrowth. She was too sore to move through the canopy thanks to his attack. Her back ached and her face stung. She made her way to where she'd seen him fall.

He really _had _been right at the edge of the Globoxes' home. The Globox family estate, if you could call it that, was a huge, flat expanse of ponds and puddles on the edge of the treeline, with a large wooden stilt-house squatting directly in the center of it all. The stranger had been thrown clear out of the forest by her energy shot. He lay unmoving, half-submerged in one of the shallow pools of water.

He wasn't getting up. Had she...?

Then he twitched, choked, burst out of the water in a blind panic. He scrambled onto the closest patch of dry land: a tiny island in the middle of the pond. It was little more than a mound of mossy stones sitting in the shallow water. He perched there wide-eyed, as if he were surrounded by burning acid.

The noise had attracted attention. It was barely dawn, and she'd hoped all the Globoxes would be safely indoors at this hour, but no such luck. Scores of Globox's children were sleeping in small piles nearby or floating in the ponds. They yawned, stretched, and began noticing the smoking branch, the visitor in their pond, and her, hobbling out of the forest. Globox's children were squat, amphibian-looking creatures, with huggable round bodies and huge mouths topped with perpetually excited-looking eyes. They had a penchant for being adorable and mobbing anything they were interested in.

In an instant, they were all wide awake and ridiculously excited.

"Ly the fairy!"

"Whas' happen?"

"Who's that?" They clustered around her legs, bouncing and skipping. Normally, she'd be happy to see them, but this was not the time at all.

A group of them were already gathering around the small island where the stranger perched. He'd gotten to his feet, and he turned in tight, nervous circles as the small amphibians bobbed in the water all around him. He still looked scared to death, even more so now that he was suddenly surrounded by dozens of small creatures squealing and croaking at him in high-pitched voices. She saw him raise his hands and settle into a defensive pose. She froze, then quickly gathered another energy shot in her palm. If he tried to strike even one of the children—

Across the ponds, the door of the wooden house opened and a dozen chubby kids spilled out, followed by Globox himself. He was only slightly less squat than his progeny, and just as goofy-looking. He rubbed his eyes and stared at the scene with a completely baffled expression.

"Ly, you all right?" he asked. "Your face looks kinda-"

"Globox!" Ly shouted. "Tell your kids to back off!"

Globox tilted his head in confusion, then noticed the stranger. "Huh. Hey, kids!" he called. "Leave the weird person alone, okay? C'mere!"

His offspring groaned and splashed the water in protest, but they obliged and swam towards the house. That was one thing she could credit Globox for—his kids all listened to him. She didn't know how he did it.

The being lowered his hands slightly. He was still breathing hard.

Globox slowly trundled his way across the 'yard', followed by a wave of chattering children. He reached the edge of the pond and stood dumbfounded as he took in the wet, shivering, limbless stranger crouched on the tiny pile of rocks in his pond. Before Ly could speak up, though, something sparkled in his eyes, as if the whole situation suddenly made complete sense. He smiled a broad grin and raised his hand in a wave.

"Hey, buddy!" he said. "You okay?"

The stranger just stared at him, looking more shell-shocked than ever. "Did the kids scare you? They can be pretty scary, right?" His kids cheered behind him. "They might look cute, but once there are more than a dozen of them, they're like a tidal wave! Well, maybe not as high as an actual tidal wave. I've never really seen a tidal wave before. We're not that far from the ocean, but the bay Teensies say a tidal wave wouldn't be able to get us. Have you met the bay Teensies?"

Globox kept talking, cheerfully derailing a dozen thoughts in as many sentences, in an easygoing tone that made it sound like the limbless being was an old friend he'd known for years. Ly wasn't even sure if the stranger understood their language, but she noticed that his hands were slowly unclenching and the raw panic was beginning to leave his face. She suspected his fear and tension were simply being smothered by the pure confusion and disbelief that inevitably followed whenever Globox was allowed to open his mouth for more than thirty seconds. His blathering was usually unbearable, but here it was actually helping to defuse the situation. The stranger glanced at her with a hilariously incredulous look—_who is this guy?_—and she had to stifle a smile.

"But hey!" Globox finally said. "You look kinda cold. And sick. Like, you really don't look good at all. I mean! You look _good_! I bet the ladies would love you! But not healthy-good...? Uh..." He frowned. Ly could tell he was trying to connect the train of thought, without much success. "Anyway, you should come inside! We'll have breakfast going soon."

The stranger blinked in surprise.

It wasn't what Ly had been expecting, either. "Globox..." she whispered, "I know you like to have guests, but-"

"Don't worry! It's not a problem. You can meet Uglette! And the kids look like they love you already. You can dry off, too, so you're not dripping everywhere. Unless you like being wet! We don't mind it. My family, I mean. We swim all over the place! But nobody else seems to like it. Do you like being all soggy like that?"

She sighed. How was this man a father.

The stranger had sat down sometime during the monologue, as if he were slowly being crushed to the ground under the onslaught of words. He glanced at Ly, opened his mouth. "Uh..." he said to Globox. "I don't think your friend wants me to come with you."

So he did speak their language. He had a strong, lyrical accent, and the intonations were in all the wrong places, but she could understand him.

Globox turned to look at Ly. "What? Why? What's up?"

Ly frowned. "Look," she spoke slowly as she addressed the limbless person. "I'm sorry for frightening you." She might have been more sorry before he ran her into a tree. "I ran after you because you came into this forest with no warning and I didn't know who you were or why you were here. I shot at you because I was afraid you might hurt Globox or his children."

"You shot at him?" Globox cried. "With your little light things? That's really dangerous!"

The being stared at her for a few seconds, uncomprehending, and then suddenly something seemed to click. "Oh... _oh_. I... okay." he wilted a little, raised one hand to scratch nervously at his hair. "Man. Um. That makes sense. I'm really sorry. I must have seemed kind of crazy... I'm sorry for coming into your forest and hitting you."

"_You hit Ly?_" Globox seemed to be having a minor breakdown at all these shocking revelations.

"I guess I just... got scared, with those blue things and all the freaky-looking people..." A deep crown creased his face. "I don't mean to be rude, but, is that even normal? Having those... _things_ sticking out of you?" He gestured at the empty space between his hand and his torso, staring at Ly's long limbs.

"Arms? Yeah!" Globox piped up. "Everyone has them! Wait... why don't you have any?" A look of horror dawned on his face. "You... didn't have an _accident_, did you?" His kids murmured behind him, looking shocked.

"They're really, really freaky looking... no offense. I thought you were monsters or something. Especially coming out of the water like that..."

"Oh no! We're not monsters! Don't worry!" Globox chirped. "Arms are totally normal! Well, maybe not if you have more than five of them. If someone has more than five arms then maybe you should run. No, you should definitely run. I think." He frowned, deep in thought now. The stranger just let out a quiet, incredulous laugh. He didn't seem so afraid anymore; now he just had a look of tired relief on his face. It was probably nice to learn that he wasn't surrounded by monsters. She'd been wrapped up in how strange _he _looked, but she hadn't even considered how bizarre _they _must have seemed in comparison. Had he really never seen someone with limbs before?

He groaned and brought one armless hand up to rub his eyes. The kids oohed and ahhed at the simple motion. "Ah, I'm sorry for bothering you all..." he said. He looked at Ly. "I'm sorry for coming inside your forest without permission. Can you forgive me?"

Ly didn't really know how to respond. She was a little startled by the whole situation. He seemed so... _ordinary,_ now that he wasn't scared witless. Nice, too, even though he looked ready to keel over dead at any moment.

Globox finally remembered his original train of thought. "But hey, right! You should come inside! What's your name?"

"Oh, uh, I'm Rayman..."

"I'm Globox!" Globox said, overjoyed. "C'mon!" The limbless person—Rayman—glanced at her and hesitated. As he should. As harmless as he looked, she still didn't want an outsider around little kids. She stepped forward.

"Globox," she said, "Maybe we should-"

Globox didn't even seem to notice her. "Oh, right! I bet you don't like getting wet! Here!" He splashed into the pond and waded over towards Rayman, who shrunk back a bit at someone invading his tiny haven. Ly tensed, opening her mouth to warn Globox back, but before she could, he unceremoniously scooped the limbless being right off the small island. Well, he grabbed Rayman's torso, and the rest of Rayman's body parts quickly followed, tugged up by an invisible connecting force.

Rayman's eyes widened and he flailed a little bit in the air. "Ah! Hey-!" He broke into a smile as Globox carried him high above his head back to the shore, to the applause of the gathered kids. "What am I, a trophy?" he asked, but he said it with a laugh. He looked incredibly amused to have such an enthusiastic welcoming party. Globox's infectious cheer had that effect on people. Ly relaxed just a little. It didn't seem like he would attack them.

"C'mon, everyone! Let's go show Mom! Breakfast time!" Globox shouted. Rayman was smiling wider, now, as he watched the kids try to clamber up their dad to reach him. "Ly, you should come too!" Globox added. "Did you know your face looks kind of messed up? Did you hit a tree again?"

Oh, she knew. Ly sighed and trailed behind them. So much for trying to protect the family from the mysterious being. Even she was powerless against the will of Globox and his endless army of excitable offspring, and Globox's will said _take the complete stranger into your home and make friends with him_. Maybe she was overreacting. But she still didn't feel all that comfortable leaving someone who'd nearly broken her back with people as trusting and gullible as the Globoxes. She'd have to figure out how to separate him from the over-exuberant family sometime later.

"Hey, breakfast is okay, right?" Globox looked up at Rayman, who was still being held safely above the sea of children.

"Oh, yes! I think? Thank you for inviting me."

"I mean, you're not on a deadline or anything, are you? I never asked what you're doing, anyway. You don't seem like you're from around here. Not having arms and stuff, you know? You must be from somewhere really far away, right? What brings you all the way to the Glade?"

"Oh, um..." Rayman's eyes dimmed a fraction at the question. He glanced away, his smile slipped a notch. For a split second, Ly could see something unbearably heavy weighing down on him. Stronger than ever, she could sense the foreign, alien aura surrounding him. Not one of them. Never was.

But then, as if she'd had just imagined the lapse, his smile was back in full force, bright enough to dazzle the sun.

"I'm... a great explorer!" Rayman said. "Well, not that great right now, but things happen as they happen, don't they?"

And his voice was so assured, so cheerful, that Ly almost believed him.

Almost.


End file.
